


Getting There

by BewareTheIdesOfMarch



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Awkwardness, Canon Setting, Confessions, Developing Relationship, M/M, how is there 4k of this I don't understand what happened, rated teen bc of takao's potty mouth I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:38:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9084847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BewareTheIdesOfMarch/pseuds/BewareTheIdesOfMarch
Summary: When it comes to his feelings for Midorima, Kazunari is way past the point of denying anything, but apparently accepting your feelings does not automatically allow one to receive the mystical wisdom of whatever the FUCK you’re supposed to do next.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is a secret santa gift for aurenwolfgang on tumblr! you said you liked fluffy stuff and awkward starting points, and while I'm not sure this could be considered fluffy, it sure as hell is awkward.

It happens so fast that he’s still thinking “ _oh shit, I’m about to eat it_ ” after he’s already facedown on the ground.  The cement is rough under his hands and surprise has stolen the air from his lungs, but Midorima’s laugh is a new one – one Kazunari has never had the chance to hear before – and suddenly it’s the most important thing in the world that he be allowed to see it happening.  He peels himself off the sidewalk ungracefully, wobbling a little as he gets up as far as his knees, and turns to the side as much as he can without actually standing.

Midorima has one hand over his mouth and is curled into himself slightly, trying to stifle the laughter that sounds like it’s been pulled uncontrollably from his chest.

“You’re laughing at me,” Kazunari says, way too fondly (he’d been going for dry or mock angry but his voice went all soft and mushy around the edges which is _so_ _unfair_ , it’s unfair of Midorima to make him like this).  He takes a full breath and tries to clear his throat.  “Shin-chan, you’re laughing at me, you ass!”

Midorima chokes on his subsiding giggles, trying to straighten out and pull up one of those stony, serious expressions he usually sticks to.  He can’t hide from Kazunari, though.  His head may still be spinning a little and his heart may be going a million miles an hour because he’s just tripped spectacularly and fallen flat on his face in front of his favorite boy in the world, but he’s always been incredible at those ‘spot the difference’ puzzles and the grin Midorima is trying to hide behind one cupped hand is new and therefore instantly obvious to him.

“You tripped over the curb,” Midorima informs him (his voice is still shaking slightly like he’s trying desperately not to laugh again and it’s so _cute_ , what the _fuck_ ), as if Kazunari could possibly have no idea that he’s just gotten a face full of public sidewalk.

“I’m aware,” Kazunari tells him, clambering to his feet.  “And you’re an asshole,” he reminds him, just in case he hasn't cottoned on to the fact that he’s a terrible friend for both mocking his misfortune and failing to offer to help him to his feet.

“Takao,” Midorima says, voice suddenly grave, and Kazunari jerks, startled by the abrupt shift in mood, rotating the last 45 degrees to face him directly.  Midorima swoops over in two long strides and is suddenly _right there_ , squinting down at him.

“Uh,” Kazunari says, thoughtfully.  Midorima’s face is very close to his own.

“You’re bleeding,” Midorima informs him, somehow making it sound like it’s his fault.  Which, actually, it probably is?  His blood, his embarrassing moment, his momentary inattention to where he was walking.  Yeah, he’s got him there, the bleeding is definitely Kazunari’s fault.  Midorima’s not-so-secret smile is totally gone and he’s frowning pretty hard at him.

“I’m sorry?” Kazunari offers, suddenly unsure where this is going.  He looks down at himself, trying to locate the offending leakage.  Shoes look fine, jeans are kind of dirty but that could honestly be because he’d picked them up off his bedroom floor this morning and he’s pretty sure they never got washed after last weekend’s excursion to the park with his sister and some of her friends.  His face feels just fine (he’s actually pretty proud of his reflexes for that one) and his arms are safely covered by his jacket, but further down, bingo, the skin at the base of his palms is an angry red and the thinner skin at the start of his wrists is actually peeling a little bit in the small gap between hand and jacket cuff.

“Stupid,” Midorima grouches at him, previous amusement tucked back into the secret ‘fun times’ cage in his brain, where he keeps it bottled up to be used only for special occasions.  He pulls Kazunari’s hands towards him and shoves his sleeves up his arms so he can get a better look at the damage.  With anyone else this would probably be super weird, but Midorima is already a weird guy and if he thinks Kazunari’s injury requires his personal examination, he’s not going to ask him to stop.  It’s really nothing major though, he’s just short a layer or two of outer skin and his palms are flushing with road rash, but there are a couple scrapes deep enough for blood to be welling out of them.  “Do you have some band-aids?”

“What?”  Kazunari blinks at him.  “Of course not,” he says, trying to gesture down at himself but stopping so he won’t shake Midorima’s hands off of his forearms.  “I only brought my phone and wallet with me, why would I be expecting to need band-aids?”

“Stupid,” Midorima says again, and at this point Kazunari is starting to feel a little offended.  Okay, so this wasn’t his smoothest move ever, but he’s only barely bleeding at all and this isn’t a big deal!  It could have happened to anyone!  That curb is definitely wildly uneven and a danger to all unsuspecting pedestrians.  If _Takao_ hadn’t seen it coming, who knows how many people have fallen victim to it?

“I’m fine, it’s not enough to need a band-aid,” he insists, pulling one wrist out of Midorima’s grip and moving to wipe it on his jeans.

“Stop that, Takao,” Midorima insists, gripping his elbow instead and forcing him to abort the motion and boy howdy, they sure are standing close together, aren’t they?  “You can use mine,” he tells him, and then reaches into his bag and pulls out today’s lucky item

Midorima opens the box (pristine, probably purchased only hours ago that morning) and pulls out two brightly colored Hello Kitty brand band-aids.  He tries to hand them to Takao who just gapes uncomprehendingly at him before taking matters into his own hands and peeling the wrappers off himself.  He delicately positions them over the worst of the scrapes and Kazunari considers the probability that he’s somehow entered the Twilight Zone.

“Shin-chan, holy fuck,” he says.

“What?” Midorima asks, but he’s not looking at him and holy _shit_ , he really??  He’s actually??

“My buddy,” Kazunari says.  “My dude.  My pal.  My best friend in the whole wide world.  What was that?”

“Nothing,” Midorima insists, carefully placing the open (open! tampered with! tainted!) box back into his satchel and staring right over Kazunari’s head.  “Let’s get going, we’ve wasted enough time here,” he says, still intently looking at something on the horizon instead of down at Takao.

“We need to talk about whatever the hell that was,” Kazunari tells him, honestly, because they _do_ , because he may explode if they don’t, because Shin-chan has absolutely been replaced with one of the pod people and it’s his solemn duty as the real Shin-chan’s best friend to interrogate this imposter and rescue the real Shin-chan – the one who doesn’t just hand out components of his all-important lucky item like a madman.

“We _need_ to get to the bus stop,” Midorima says, already practically jogging away from him, the filthy coward.

“Don’t think I’m going to forget this!” Kazunari calls after him, before giving himself a final pat down to rid himself of any lingering evidence of his recent acquaintance with the sidewalk (he runs his thumbs carefully over the band-aid on each wrist) and then chasing after him.

…

Here’s the thing: there are sets of rules for how Midorima Shintarou will interact with someone.

(Takao has studied this extensively – he can’t help it, he spends a lot of time with the guy – and he’s honestly amazed by the consistency with which he keeps to his patterns.)

It’s a pyramid of privilege, with the things he’s willing to do for a person building up from “would lend you a pen” at the very basic classmate or acquaintance levels to “would allow you to lay hands on his person and at least meet (if not speak to) his parents” at the friend level.  The minutiae of the system are too many to track – Midorima is unabashedly a difficult person to warm up to – and most people never get past the “acquaintance” classification.  With time and careful observation, however, it can become easy to distinguish how close Midorima is to anyone through even the most basic interactions.

Yukino, who sits near him in class, can wish him a nice weekend and receive a nod a polite response in return.  A textbook example of a classmate.

Miyaji (both Kiyoshi and Yuya) can slap him on the back on the way into the locker room after practice and make teasing comments about his ex-teammates.  They could both request and expect full participation in a high-five.  Easily identifiable teammate behavior.

Kuroko, although Midorima would be loath to admit it, is absolutely a friend.  He is allowed to pay for Midorima’s meals and Midorima keeps an eye on aquarius’s ranking on days when the two of them might be likely to spend time together, either on or off a basketball court.

Takao is, apparently, worth tampering with his lucky items for.  And that’s the thing: there’s no precedent for this behavior.  Takao has never seen it happen in a friend relationship before – never seen it happen in _any_ relationship he’s seen Midorima have so far.

…

If science has found five acknowledged stages of grief, someone out there should invest some time in identifying the different stages of having a crush.  It would be really beneficial, like a roadmap to dealing with romance.  A travel guide for the emotionally inept.  Lots of people would appreciate it, probably.  Lots of teenage boys with shifting relationships with their best friends might be very grateful for such a thing.

It’s not like Kazunari is in denial about his friendlier-than-expected feelings.  He’s clearly and definitively passed that stage of crush-having ages ago.  It would be downright ridiculous to try to explain them away this point anyways.  (Really, you followed the boy around for, what, months?  Doing anything you could think of to get his attention?  And then, once it became painfully clear that he’s not just an asshole basketball genius, he’s an asshole basketball genius with a veritable maze of neuroses and a massively dorky personality, you _kept hanging around_ ?   _Because you thought it was weirdly charming??_  You’re in a little deeper than you thought, that’s all Kazunari is saying.)  He’s way past the point of denying anything, but apparently accepting your feelings does not automatically allow one to receive the mystical wisdom of whatever the FUCK you’re supposed to do next.

Sometimes he wishes they were both older.  Not a lot older - not, like, grandparents - but a couple years older.  So they’d be more experienced and confident.  More settled.  Old enough that at least one of them would have some kind of goddamn clue about what they’re doing and how they’re supposed to do it.

(And it is, Kazunari supposes, a “they”.  Probably.  He’s feeling confident, especially after the lucky item thing.  He’d have to be blind and incredibly stupid not to realize that he’s Shin-chan’s best friend as well, and the weird tension between them is absolutely not just a one-way thing.  The problem is that Shin-chan is the most awkward person on the entire planet, probably, and that Kazunari knows him well enough at this point to realize that he’s going to have to take charge and force the two of them to make the leap into anything “more”.  The secondary problem is that the thought of doing this is absolutely fucking terrifying and there’s no way he can just blurt it out because _what if he’s wrong_?)

It’s Monday and Kazunari has taken two very careful showers and left the very important, definitely lucky Hello Kitty band-aids right where Midorima had put them, long past the period that his pitiful scrapes would actually need their protection.  His uniform jacket comes down just far enough that they’re covered most of the time, but it’s lunchtime and he’s caught Midorima looking at them with a weird, contemplative expression twice since they shoved their desks together to eat.

Today Midorima’s lucky item is rock-paper-scissors.  He has all the actual items on him and Takao has been secretly playing lightning rounds of it with him between classes, booing him silently across the classroom whenever he loses, which is every time.  Midorima insisted that they play again just before they started eating and he’d pretended to scoff at Kazunari when he’d done a little victory dance in his chair after he’d finally won.  It was definitely a fake scoff, though.  A pretend frown to hide a smile.  God, Kazunari wants to date that boy so badly.

Kazunari reminds himself that if he wants to move forward, he’ll have to be the one who takes the steps necessary to do so.  He takes a deep breath.  Maybe he can try sending some subtle signals?

“It’s a shame I’m not dating anyone,” he says out loud, and Midorima does an almost textbook perfect double take.  Given that he was essentially interrupting a discussion they’d been having about Kaijou’s potential performance in the next tournament with a total non sequitur, this is understandable.  “I have a lot of love in my heart,” he continues, loudly (and is that really his voice?  he’s actually saying this?  out loud, in the middle of the classroom, where people can hear him?), “and I really think that there’s someone out there who could be benefitting from it.  It’s kind of a waste, to be honest.”

“What,” says Midorima, like Kazunari is suggesting that they take up line dancing as their next offensive strategy.

 _‘I don’t know,’_ Kazunari wants to scream _.  ‘I don’t know why I said that, Shin-chan, I’m sorry, please can we just get on the same page telepathically and move on to making out and never talk about this ever again?’_

Instead he makes eye contact with Shin-chan and says: “I’d be a fucking fantastic boyfriend.”

(‘ _Subtle!_ ’ his brain is screeching, ‘ _I thought we agreed on subtle!_ ’)

Midorima is staring at him, eyes wide, eyebrows up.  The girls who are eating lunch in a four-person configuration next to them are staring too.  Noriko’s egg sandwich filling is dripping out from between the bread and onto the napkin she has laid out beneath it.

Kazunari has to close his eyes for a second to prevent himself from cringing or slamming his face into the desk.  It’s close, but his self control just barely wins the battle.  He takes a breath and opens his eyes.

Midorima is still staring at him.  Noriko is frozen and Haruka and Akemi both have their phones out and are furiously texting.  Fumie appears to be trying to take one of the other’s desserts from their bento while they’re sufficiently distracted.  (Kazunari is rooting for her; he hopes at least one of them manages to make something out of the train wreck he’s made of this conversation.)

“You…want to date someone?” Midorima asks, but it comes out funny, like sort of a croak.

Not trusting his mouth to do any more talking, Kazunari nods.  Midorima is squinting at him now, like he’s some kind of alien lifeform.  (He’s been doing a lot of squinting lately, maybe Kazunari should ask him if he’s planning to get his glasses prescription checked any time soon.)  Is he not getting the point?  Kazunari flashes him a double thumbs up to punctuate his nodding, hoping that will somehow get his meaning across.  

“…You want to date someone because you think you’d be good at it?” Midorima asks.

“Fucking _fantastic_ ,” Kazunari’s horrible traitor mouth says without his brain’s permission.

Midorima looks like he’s actually in pain – like trying to talk about this is equal to having a tooth pulled or something – and bringing this up was definitely a mistake.  Kazunari’s stomach is sinking so far that if he tries to stand and run from this conversation he’ll probably trip over it and start the whole embarrassing cycle all over again, like some awful teen romcom version of Groundhog Day.

“Is there someone in particular that you want to date?” Midorima asks, practically coughing the question out and grabbing for his juice box.  (And fuck Kazunari, that’s another thing he loves about Midorima.  He brings juice with his lunch, how cute is that?)

Midorima is drinking his juice with a previously unseen fervor and he’s looking over Takao’s shoulder again instead of at him like a normal person would.  He’s almost – dare Kazunari think it? – nervous.  Kazunari rolls his shoulders and laces his fingers together in front of himself on the desk.  The movement makes the band-aids peek out again and Midorima’s eyes dart to them reflexively, like he can’t _not_ look at them, and then he’s back to staring past Kazunari to the notes the last teacher left on the board.  He’s oddly tense.

And holy shit.

There’s no way.

There’s no way Shin-chan doesn’t realize that it’s him, right?

“I mean,” Kazunari starts incredulously, before biting back the rest of _whatever_ he was about to say.  He has to be careful here, he could be misreading this.  (‘ _Shin-chan might be worried that it is him, not that it isn’t.  You know, he might not really want you to have feelings for him,_ ’ his brain tells him, and fuck that, now he’s getting nervous too.  Not that he wasn’t nervous before.  God, he’s starting to sweat a lot and he really wishes Noriko would stop staring at them.)

“There’s someone I’ve been thinking about asking out,” he says slowly, paying close attention to how Midorima reacts.

Interestingly enough, he freezes entirely for a second.  Then he’s looking at his juice box (definitely empty by now) to the band-aids (still there) to Kazunari (who looks right back at him).

“Today is a good day for it,” Midorima says, voice still weird and strained.  “Capricorn is first, but scorpios are ranked third.  But maybe you should wait until you’re first instead.  To be safe.”  Kazunari pulls a face at this in confusion - is he asking him to ask him out on some other, more fortunate day? - and Midorima is visibly unsettled by the pause and reopens his mouth to let more stilted words spill out.  “We have practice anyways, which means you have to pedal us home.  I’ve been informed that confessions are supposed to be private, you won’t want me there.  Maybe try some other day.  Not today, it’s no good after all.”  And then, most improbably, he says, “I was wrong.”

 _There’s_ the money shot; things are falling into place now.  

Midorima _actually_ thinks Kazunari is hung up on someone else.  ( _What the hell, Shin-chan?  Was he not obvious enough?  Is it actually possible for him to have misinterpreted the World’s Worst Ever Attempt at Flirting by Takao Kazunari?)_

“What if I don’t want to wait?” Kazunari asks, trying to make significant eye contact (he has to get it eventually, right? right??).  “Scorpio’s all the way up in third?  That’s good enough for me.”

Midorima still won’t look directly at him and his grip on his juice is going white-knuckled.  The flimsy cardboard is warping under his fingers and a single wavering droplet is threatening to escape one corner of the carton and drip onto his desk.  He’s not getting it, the absolute blockhead.

“Shin-chan,” Kazunari sighs, reaching across the desks to take the juice box from his hand.  Midorima lets him, but then grabs his wrist before he can move too far, long fingers circling over the pink band-aid.

“Takao,” he says, and really, does he have to sound like he’s under serious duress?  Yes, this is awkward for both of them, but Kazunari thinks he and his martyr’s expression are going a little bit overboard.  “Takao,” he says again, voice tight, shaking Kazunari’s arm to make sure he’s paying attention to him.  “I think I should probably tell you-“

“Shin-chan,” Kazunari tries to cut in, because like hell he’s going to let Midorima confess first!  He’s the one in charge of making the moves, Midorima doesn’t get to throw himself under the pain train at the last minute!  Besides, preemptively confessing your unrequited love to your best friend in order to ‘clear the air’ or whatever the _hell_ you think you’re doing before he asks someone else out seems like a dick move!

(Not that his feelings actually _are_ unrequited – and Kazunari absolutely isn’t about to ask anyone else out – but it’s the principle of the thing.  He’d assumed Shin-chan would be much classier than this, honestly.  Kazunari had pegged him for a ‘suffer in silence’ type.)

“Takao,” Midorima says more forcefully, “would you just-”

“Hey, I’m-” Kazunari is probably giving him a pretty nasty glare right now, but he doesn’t care.  That’s what Shin-chan gets for being an interrupting dickhead.

“Would you _please-_ ” Midorima tries, voice rising with his frustration.

“Shin-chan!” Kazunari snaps at him, cutting him off again.  See how great getting interrupted feels?  Pretty shitty, huh?

“Takao!” Midorima all but shouts, grip on his wrist going so tight that Kazunari gasps involuntarily and yanks his arm away.  The motion causes the juice box to go sailing out of his hand (it lands somewhere near the front of the classroom, Akemi lets out a slight shriek of surprise) and the band-aid - adhesive weak after days of wear - to peel half off, fluttering out of the end of Kazunari’s sleeve.  In irritation, he grabs it and pulls the other end free, slamming the poor thing down onto the surface of his desk with a bang. 

“God _dammit_ , Shin-chan!” Kazunari snarls, shooting up out of his seat, both palms on his desk, leaning over Midorima as much as he can.  “I’m trying to tell you who I like!”  Midorima’s expression hardens at this show of aggression, visibly battening down his hatches and retreating into himself as he leans carefully away from Kazunari’s anger.

(A small part of his brain weeps for the Takao Kazunari of only minutes ago, who was so young and innocent and naive.  The Takao Kazunari who still believed in rationality and karmic justice.  The Takao Kazunarui who thought that he would be able to simply subtly hint to Midorima that he’s free to start making out with him any day now and then reap the rewards.  Literally any day now, Shin-chan.  Kazunari is ready to get down to business whenever you’re finally up for it.)

“Your crush is no concern of mine,” Midorima tells him coldly, but his hands are clenched so tightly into fists that they’re trembling.

“Liar,” Kazunari accuses, eyes narrowing.  “You were going to say something else.”  Midorima opens his mouth as if to refute this, but he’s too hard and distant for Takao to let him add anything to this argument.  (When had it turned into an argument?  Is confessing this difficult for other people or is Kazunari just special?)  “Doesn’t matter though,” he says, before Midorima can get another cutting remark in edgewise, “because you’re wrong.  My crush is absolutely your problem.”

(In his peripheral vision, Noriko finally has the presence of mind to put what’s left of her sandwich down. There are distinct indentations from her fingers left in the bread.)

“I fail to see-” Midorima tries, and it’s a valiant effort, really, but Kazunari is fueled by adrenaline and anger and the leftovers from his dad’s subpar attempt at yakitori and he shuts him up by dragging his hands over his face and heaving the most dramatic sigh of his teenage life.

“How is this going so _badly_?” he groans into his palms, and then removes his hands from his face.  “Shin-chan,” he says, “Shin-chan, look me in the eyes right now.”  Midorima humors him for once (it’s possible that the frankly astounding amount of aggravation in his tone is compelling him to comply) and Kazunari takes a deep breath.  Better get this over with.  He’ll do it fast, like ripping off a band-aid.  “It’s you.  I think I’d be a really fucking fantastic boyfriend to you.”

Absently, he thinks he’s probably supposed to be more nervous, but all his earlier jitters seem to have burned off with his exasperation. 

“I like you,” he tells Midorima, as his mouth falls open.  “Sorry I didn’t write you a letter or whatever I guess,” he adds, as an afterthought, “I wasn’t really planning on confessing to you in the middle of the classroom today.”  Typical Shin-chan, pushing him further than he’d ever thought he’d go.  Midorima is gaping now and Kazunari is starting to feel very disconnected from the situation.  Like confessing released a weight from him that he didn’t realize he was carrying.  He feels like he’s about to fade away or float through the ceiling.   

“Me too,” Midorima says, in an odd, whispery voice.

Kazunari blinks at him, focus snapping back to the way his still-shaking fingers adjust his glasses.

He clears his throat and flushes all the way down to his neck.  “I like you too,” he chokes out, and then he stands all at once, knees banging so hard into the underside of his desk that he nearly knocks it over, and runs from the classroom.

“Capricorns, eat your hearts out,” Kazunari says to Midorima’s empty chair.  “Who needs to be number one anyways?  Third place is just as good, yeah?” he asks Fumie as an unstoppable grin creeps across his face.  She shrugs gamely in response, sliding the unfortunate egg sandwich over to herself from in front of a flustered Noriko so she can pick it apart.

Takao rubs one thumb over his remaining lucky band-aid.  “I fucking knew it,” he mutters to Hello Kitty, nose crinkling with the force of his smile.

“I fucking _knew_ it,” he announces to the classroom at large, and then leaves to go track down his best-boy?-friend.  There are some details he wants to go over with him regarding their potential schedule for future making out.  Also, he desperately needs to see what face Shin-chan makes when he tells him he likes him again.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact, I wrote 1k words about superheroes before I convinced myself to buckle down and try to make something centered on canon
> 
> also the correct way to type band-aid is Band-Aid but the owners of Johnson & Johnson will have to come physically fight me before I start capitalizing it
> 
> also-also in my heart I know that Shutoku is the team that swears the most, so please forgive Takao and his profanity bc none of his senpai are setting a good example for him


End file.
